Comet 56P/Slaughter-Burnham: an image (27 Oct. 2016)

Comet 56P/Slaughter-Burnham was discovered on January 27, 1959 by Charles D. Slaughter and Robert Burnham of the Lowell Observatory. It has a period of 11.5 years and its next passage to perihelion will be in on July 2018.

Comet 56P/Slaughter-Burnham, an image – 27 Oct. 2016

The one above comes from the average of six , 300 seconds exposures,remotely taken with the “Elena” (PlaneWave 17″+Paramount ME+SBIG STL-6303E) robotic unit part of the Virtual Telescope Project. The telescope tracked the comet during exposures. Comet 56P/Slaughter-Burnham shows a nice, little tail.

One of the discoverers, Robert Burnham, is the author of the legendary Burnham’s Celestial Handbook, which has been (and still is) a must for every observers, collecting plenty of data and stories about stars, constellations and deep sky objects.

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